


A Yeerk On Her Own

by S_M_F (Autistic_Ace)



Category: Animorphs - Katherine A. Applegate, Young Wizards - Diane Duane
Genre: Don't copy to another site, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-26
Updated: 2019-08-26
Packaged: 2020-09-27 04:31:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 826
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20401723
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Autistic_Ace/pseuds/S_M_F
Summary: A little nighttime rendezvous.Also: an invasion, and one of the many ways in which it may have been avoided.





	A Yeerk On Her Own

**Author's Note:**

> A oneshot inspired by [Ankhiale](/users/Ankhiale/)'s fic.

Hempstead, New York, night time. Elious 5578 crept into the home and room of her target in utmost silence.  
  
Her target was quiet, socially; an avoider of conflict, lover of nature, and someone whom the majority of her classmates thought an outcast, meaning if something happened to her she would not be missed. Yet also, a force in her own right.  
  
A perfect host.  
  
\------  
  
Sliding inside the ear, Elious reached to prep her host-  
That was strange. All of a sudden Elious was walking - _walking_ \- under a darkened sky. She could feel grass under her feet, smell the damp on the air.  
  
At first contact, she'd found herself embedded in a dream? Preposterous! She couldn't allow herself to get distracted...  
  
And yet, she pressed on.  
  
\------  
  
She came upon a sign, in the dream.  
  
`Read This to Enter`, it said. She could have laughed - a _defense_ mechanism? In a _human?_  
  
Elious 5578 stopped laughing when she realized the sign hadn't been in English. Or any other language sourced to this planet.  
  
Adapting what was (she thought) a wary, battle-ready stance for this form, Elious 5578 studied her surroundings.  
  
Nothing yielded itself to her view. Nothing stirred, there was no life here-  
  
But there, at the base of a sign, laid a book.  
  
\------  
  
She was already inside the human; even if they woke up, Elious 5578 reasoned, they wouldn't be able to dislodge her, or have reason to know anything was wrong. She could continue to work at assuming host control any time.  
  
That, and her assigned human _was_ a bookworm.   
  
Lips curling slightly at the species-misadjacent pun, she sat down to read.  
  
\------  
  
It took her less than a minute to realize that, if this was a trap, it was a very strange one.  
  
This book was about _wizardry_, what power words could have over the universe - yet also over one's self.  
  
_With this power_, Elious 5578 found herself musing, _one might not even need a host at all!_  
  
Shapeshifting, interstellar travel - the Yeerks had learned much by taking from other species. The Andalites had shaped them, and the Yeerks had rejected that and then gone on to shape many other species - yet with _this_, they could shape even themselves!  
  
But for _her_ to be the first Yeerk to come across the knowledge... it was nonsense, it had to be.  
  
But at the same time, something about it was invigorating, _exciting._  
  
At the end of a book was a page she could not flip past. There was only one paragraph of text there, and Elious 5578 squinted at it.  
  
\------  
  
"By the way," she said aloud, acting on one suspicion. "This isn't by chance an excuse to vaporize me for taking this human as a host, is it?"  
  
No response, which Elious 5578 - or could it be just Elious now? - took as sign of either no enemy or a smart one.  
  
Exhaling, and inhaling once more for strength, she began to read aloud.  
  
_In Life's name and for Life's sake, I assert that I will employ the Art which is its gift in Life's service alone, rejecting all other usages. I will guard growth and ease pain._  
(And wasn't it odd to think of the Yeerks as just another form of life - not a parasite, something that required force or to be forced, but something that inherently deserved protection-!)  
_I will fight to preserve what grows and lives well in its own way; and I will change no object or creature unless its growth and life, or that of the system of which it is part, are threatened. To these ends, in the practice of my Art, I will put aside fear for courage, and death for life, when it is right to do so -- till Universe's end._  
  
The words echoed, a thrill of power ran through her mind - and then Elious realized she had better get out of here before the wizard-in-residence woke up...!  
  
\------  
  
Nita groaned into her pillow, one hand moving absently in the pre-dawn twilight. She registered faintly the sensation of _something_ in her ear.  
  
_Ponch?_  
  
For a moment, Nita considered this perfectly normal.  
  
Then she remembered that Ponch _couldn't be there_, and she pushed herself right up in bed.  
  
When nothing proved itself to be in her room with her, Nita flipped herself about to sit properly on her bed, letting her adrenaline levels return to normal.  
  
As she sat, a familiar non-voice spoke up in the back of her head.  
  
_/News for you, boss. You'll want to hear about this one.../_  
  
\------  
  
After the peridexis had finished explaining (and Nita had checked her Manual and found that there was to be _no_ Yeerk invasion of this planet, at this or any other time), she had to ask about one thing in particular.  
  
"This wasn't just because you didn't want to have to share the inside of my head with anyone, was it?"  
  
There was silence, for a time.  
  
_/No comment,/_ Bobo replied, and Nita smiled.

**Author's Note:**

> Bonus points if you can figure out where the Yeerk's name came from! ;)


End file.
